Pirates to the Big Jab, Patriots to WZAN

[Dib9@aol.com]

http://sports.mainetoday.com/pirates/stories/010804radio.shtml

The story reports that the broadcasts of the Portland Pirates, Maine's AHL 
hockey franchise, are moving from 970 WZAN to JJ Jeffrey's all-sports "Big 
Jab" stations (95.5 WCLZ Topsham /1440 WJAE Westbrook / 900 WJJB Brunswick). 

I don't know why the move was made, but the Pirates' President was on "The 
Morning Jab" on Friday and said that they started to look for a new station 
when WZAN's management decided to make some changes in programming.  He made 
its sound like the Big Jab was their second choice, which I'm sure the 
station loved.  The Pirates are moving up the start time of their weekday 
games to 6:00 PM, which with the pregame show would mean that "Don & Mike" 
would be cut off at 5:30 when their are weekday games.  WZAN is built around 
Imus and Don & Mike so that may have led to the change.

The Pirates are not as hot as the baseball Portland Sea Dogs, that remain on 
WZAN, but the Pirates are a good pick up for the all-sports Big Jab stations 
and should help increase the profile of the stations.  I wonder what will 
happen with the Celtics and Bruins broadcasts that had been on the Big Jab?  
They could move to JJ's WLOB or WMTW might be interested.  WMTW's evening and 
weekend programming, well actually all their programming, is dreadful.

The New England Patriots, which had been on the Big Jab, will be heard on 
WZAN this fall.  Preseason games will be on 1490 WBAE because of conflicts 
with the Sea Dogs broadcasts on WZAN.

-- Dan Billings, Bowdoinham, Maine